A Watershed in Global Governance? : An Independent Assessment of the World Commission on Dams

Will governments be running the world in the next century? In this era of globalization, who will make the rules on investment, human rights and environment? How can citizens participate? These are some of the questions a team of researchers from World Resources Institute (WRI, Washington, D.C.), Lawyers' Environmental Action Team (LEAT, Dar Es Salaam) and South Asia address in an independent assessment of the World Commission on Dams (WCD). The WCD was a self-styled "experiment" in global public policy-making. It was set up to produce a set of international guidelines for the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of large dams and options on their alternatives. The WCD undertook this task over two years, with a pledge to be independent, transparent, inclusive and representative of a diverse body of stakeholders. Participants in the process have included dam-building companies, multilateral development banks, affected people's groups and other non-governmental organizations, private consultants, and the public at large. The high aspirations on which the process was founded mean that the Commission's experience with putting these good governance principles into practice will have significance for the future global policy-making efforts. The central aim of the Assessment team's research was to assess the World Commission on Dams' experience as an example of global public policy-making at the contentious intersection of environment and development. The Assessment team examined the recent evolution of global public policy-making, including the experience of other global processes that emerged during and after the Rio Earth Summit. Within this broader context, the Assessment team asked: how successful has the World Commission on Dams been in putting into practice its guiding principles: independence, transparency, inclusivity, and consensus-driven process?; and what have been the challenges in doing so? This assessment of the World Commission on Dams provides a framework and recommendations to assist stakeholder groups who are grappling with changing forms of accountability, representation and decision-making structures in the global arena.